When his business card is found in the pocket of a man who has died under the wheels of a train at Shinjuku station in Tokyo, Kenneth Sharpe's life takes a turn for the worse. The stakes start high, and rise higher, as Sharpe and his friends take on the might of the financial world against the backdrop of the 2008 Wall Street collapse, and the ruin of the global financial markets. This edition includes an appendix containing sections of the original first draft written in 2007, which described an earthquake rocking Tokyo and causing a nuclear accident. These were replaced in the final published edition by descriptions of the effects of the Lehman Shock. However, with the events of March 11, 2011, the first draft has proved disturbingly prophetic. Best-selling Sherlock Holmes author Hugh Ashton lived in Japan for over 25 years, working in the technology and financial services sectors. At the Sharpe End was his second published novel, following the acclaimed alternative history Beneath Gray Skies.